Matthew Broderick has said American audiences were often left “perplexed” by the questions of Northern Irish and British identity at the heart of Ulster American, as he prepares to bring the dark comedy to the Abbey Theatre.
Speaking to Brendan O’Connor on RTÉ Radio 1 ahead of the Dublin run, the 64-year-old actor also reflected on his lifelong connection with Donegal and the enduring appeal of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Broderick has already performed Ulster American in New York but admitted the nerves return when facing a new audience.
“The first time doing a play in front of an audience, the nervousness is very real,” he said.
“For me anyway, it’s shaky hands and all that. It’s quite a lot of adrenaline that first night.”
Geraldine Hughes, Matthew Broderick and Max Baker on stage in Ulster American / Image: Image credit: Carol Rosegg
Written by Belfast playwright David Ireland and directed by Ciarán O’Reilly, Ulster American stars Broderick alongside Max Baker and Geraldine Hughes.
The play centres on a meeting between an Ulster-born playwright, an English director and an Oscar-winning American actor, Jay Conway, played by Broderick, on the night before rehearsals begin.
“It starts off as all getting to know each other and happy about what’s coming tomorrow,” Broderick said.
“And it just doesn’t go well, in any way.
“It’s about as awful a first meeting as you could picture.”
His character is an entitled Hollywood star whose confidence is not always matched by his understanding of the subjects he is discussing.
Asked whether the portrayal was unfair to Hollywood actors, Broderick joked: “I’m tempted to say you’re looking at one.”
He said most actors he has worked with have been “great”, but recognised the type.
“These youngsters who are told everything they do is brilliant and right, they kind of develop a personality that they’re not self-critical.
“They get some weird ideas.”
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker married in 1997
The play also explores identity in Northern Ireland, with the fictional playwright at its centre identifying as British rather than Irish.
Broderick said that distinction often confused audiences during the New York run.
“American audiences were often very perplexed,” he said.
“It’s not the usual argument about the North that we hear in the United States. It’s not from the Republic point of view, and people aren’t very familiar with that in New York.
“She keeps insisting she’s British. ‘Not Irish, I’m British,’ which my character absolutely cannot follow or comprehend.
“But I think people here will know what she’s talking about.”
Broderick’s own relationship with Ireland stretches back to childhood.
He was around nine or ten when his parents began bringing the family to Donegal after discovering the county while travelling around Ireland.
“They stayed at a bed and breakfast in Donegal and loved it,” he recalled.
“Then they went back and rented a house one summer and brought all of us kids and kept doing that. Then a little house came available and my dad bought it, and that’s how it started.”
For a child growing up in Greenwich Village in New York, Donegal offered an entirely different way of life.
“The first place we rented didn’t have electricity. It was gas lights, which are really fun when you’re little,” he said.
“I got to know the neighbours and we made friends, so I had other kids that I could play with, and some freedom where you could walk around on your own unlike in New York City.”
Some of his fondest memories are of helping local families with the hay.
“I would go with this family nearby and spend all day in a field with boiled eggs and a pot of tea,” he said.
“Those were just great days.”
Broderick continues to return to Donegal with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker and their family.
“I feel I fit in,” he said. “But I know I’m the foreigner, I’m a Yank, but I feel welcome there.”
His late father James Broderick also had a strong connection with the county and loved watching Gaelic football in Cill Charthaigh.
Broderick said appearing at the Abbey now carries particular meaning because of his father, who died in 1982 as his son’s own acting career was beginning.
“He would have loved that,” he said.
“He would have loved to have worked at the Abbey. That would have meant a lot to him.”
Broderick also spoke to Brendan O’Connor about 40 years of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, watching his own son pursue acting, and the ups and downs of maintaining a career across film and theatre.
Ulster American runs at the Abbey Theatre from 12 to 22 August.